The Dixie Center for the Arts is a historic Performing Arts Center/Event Venue in Ruston's historic downtown district. Its mission is to "Be the Home and Heart for the Arts". The Dixie Center originally opened as the New Astor Theatre as a silent movie house and Vaudeville play theater. The theatre went through several name changes before becoming the Dixie Theatre. Decades of entertainment have come across the movie screen and stage to thrill the residents of North Louisiana until newer and more modern movie theater options pushed the Dixie out of the movie business in 1978. The Dixie Theatre then became home for the weekly Joe Wood’s Wildwood Express Show (which still happens yearly as a benefit show for the Dixie), the Dixie Jamboree, and other small plays and events that continued in the 1980s through the 1990s. In October 1993, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places, a distinction held by few buildings in Downtown Ruston. By 1994, the theater was in such a state of disrepair and out-of-date with the current codes that it was shut down by the Fire Marshal. The Dixie Center for the Arts, a non-profit formed by a group of caring citizens, feverishly took on the task of renovating the old building on Vienna Street in Downtown Ruston in 1996 and began restoring her to her former glory (a work in progress), and continues to nurture the building and entertain the community today.